The Coming War With Pakistan

BBC rewrites 10 years of history and declares Pakistan the new enemy.by Tony Cartalucci

December 4, 2011 - BBC are propagandists whose lies have killed people. Their documentaries are made upon request by special interest groups whose narratives are sewn verbatim into what would otherwise look like a "documentary." With BBC's name attached, it is hoped, these tissues of lies are then able to gain traction and begin rewriting reality. Their recent hit on Pakistan is not the first time they have been caught peddling wholesale lies dressed up as "documentaries." Earlier this year, they also cobbled together "This World: Thailand - Justice Under Fire," where evidence drawn from paid lobbyists of Western-backed opposition leaders and US State Department cables and used to promote Wall Street and London's corporate-financier interests in Thailand.

BBC's two-part "Secret Pakistan" documentary attempts to frame the 10 year foreign occupation of Afghanistan and the lack of progress as the result of "Pakistani duplicity." In reality, even upon watching BBC's "documentary," one can clearly see that the US, UK, and NATO have simply traded places with invading Soviets and now face the same fierce indigenous force fighting against occupation. Indeed, just as Pakistan's intelligence agency ISI supported Afghans during the Soviet invasion, they are very likely to be supporting Afghans now in their current bid for freedom.

However, BBC is entirely unable to establish this and instead, crutches its argument along on false pretenses, such as the Taliban "are" Al Qaeda, that the US, UK, and NATO have a right to be in Afghanistan in the first place, and that Pakistan has some sort of obligation to unconditionally cooperate with these foreign occupiers. While it may be instructive for many to watch the lengthy, two-hour "documentary," there are two quotes from prominent interviewees that give BBC's game away while perfectly summing up the reality of the Afghanistan war.

BBC's "Secret Pakistan" Summed Up in Two Quotes.

Sherard Cowper-Coles was a British diplomat who served as the Foreign Secretary's Special Representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan from 2009-2010, before that as ambassador to Israel and Saudi Arabia, and is now the international business development director of British defense contractor BAE Systems. He claims during the BBC documentary that (44:00), "the real military threat is the Taliban - a serious insurgency that's got nothing to do with Bin Laden. Bin Laden, in operational terms, is utterly spectacularly irrelevant." Quite clearly this contradicts the "war on terror" narrative and instead suggests that current US, British and NATO operation in Afghanistan has more to do with Western interests in the region than fighting the alleged perpetrators of 9/11.

The next important point is garnered nearly toward the very end of the documentary where former CIA officer Bruce Riedel (57:35) claims, "there is probably no worst nightmare for America, for Europe, for the world in the 21st century than a Pakistan that is out of control, under the influence of extremist Islamist forces armed with nuclear weapons." This comment, however, is not as straight forward or as truthful as Cowper-Coles'. However, if one realizes that this destabilization Riedel is hinting at is actually the work of the US and NATO done as a pretext to invade Pakistan, then it becomes truly telling - and we see the BBC documentary as yet another corporate-media conjured casus belli.

Riedel's "Pakistan out of control" is a long planned plot to invade Pakistan.

In a 2007 article from the London Guardian titled, “Bush handed blueprint to seize Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal,” it is stated that fears of destabilization inside Pakistan might prompt the United States to occupy Islamabad and the provinces of Punjab, Sindh, and Baluchistan in an attempt to secure Pakistan’s nuclear warheads.

The report was written by Fredrick Kagan who sits within the American Enterprise Institute (AEI). AEI’s board of trustees represents a wide variety of corporate-financier interests including those of the notorious Carlyle Group, State Farm, American Express, and Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co (also of the CFR). War criminal Dick Cheney also acts as a trustee. Joining Kagan as members of AEI’s “research staff” are warmongers Newt Gingrich, John Bolton, Richard Perle, John Yoo, and Paul Wolfowitz.

Kagan’s report regarding Pakistan’s partial occupation and the seizure of its nuclear arsenal is founded on what may first appear to be a reasonable concern, one shared by Bruce Riedel; the fear of Pakistan collapsing and its nuclear arsenal falling into the wrong hands. According to Kagan’s narrative, Islamic extremists seizing Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal pose as much a threat today as “Soviet tanks” once did, a sentiment that echos Riedel's words in the BBC's "Secret Pakistan."

Bruce Riedel is a former CIA officer and was a senior adviser to three US presidents, including President Obama. His area of focus is the Middle East and South Asia and he is currently a "Senior Fellow" at the corporate-financier-funded (page 19 .pdf) Brookings Institution. It was at Brookings that Ridel would help co-author the 2009 "Which Path to Persia?" a documented conspiracy to overthrow the government of Iran with foreign-backed color revolutions, covert military operations, sanctions, invasion, and even funding terrorists groups including the US State Department listed, French/Iraqi-based Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization (MEK) and Baluchistani terrorists who straddle the Iranian-Pakistani border.

For those that believe Riedel is nothing more than a paunchy, pencil-pushing "expert" used to pad out BBC documentaries, and that think-tanks like the Brookings Institution are merely dispensing advice and not corporate-approved policy, it should be noted that Riedel's "Which Path to Persia?" has already long since gone operational. It is also noted within the BBC documentary itself, that Riedel was advising the US president regarding Pakistan.

One group amongst this "force," are the Baluchi terrorists that straddle the Iranian-Pakistani border. In a 2006 report by the corporate-financier funded think tank Carnegie Endowment for International Peace titled, “Pakistan: The Resurgence of Baluch Nationalism,” violence starting as early as 2004-2005 is described. According to the report, 20% of Pakistan’s mineral and energy resources reside in the sparsely populated province. On page 4 of the report, the prospect of using the Baluchi rebels against both Islamabad and Tehran is proposed. In Seymour Hersh’s 2008 article, “Preparing the Battlefield,” US support of Baluchi groups operating against Tehran is reported as already a reality. As already mentioned, in Brookings Institution’s “Which Path to Persia?” the subject of arming and sending Baluchi insurgents against Tehran is also discussed at great depth.

The 2006 Carnegie Endowment for International Peace report makes special note of the fact that above all, the Baluchistan province serves as a transit zone for a potential Iranian-India-Turkmenistan natural gas pipeline as well as a port, Gwadar, that serves as a logistical hub for Afghanistan, Central Asia’s landlocked nations as well as a port for the Chinese. The report notes that the port was primarily constructed with Chinese capital and labor with the intention of it serving as a Chinese naval station “to protect Beijing’s oil supply from the Middle East and to counter the US presence in Central Asia.” This point in particular, regarding China, was described in extricating detail in the 2006 Strategic Studies Institute’s report “String of Pearls: Meeting the Challenge of China’s Rising Power across the Asian Littoral.” Throughout the report means to co-opt and contain China’s influence throughout the region are discussed.

The Carnegie Endowment report goes on to describe how the Baluchi rebels have fortuitously begun attacking the development of their province over concerns of “marginalization” and “dispossession.” In particular attacks were launched against the Pakistani military and Chinese facilities. The question of foreign intervention is brought up in this 2006 report, based on accusations by the Pakistani government that the rebels are armed with overly sophisticated weaponry. India, Iran, and the United States are accused as potential culprits.

The report concludes that virtually none of Pakistan’s neighbors would benefit from the insurgency and that the insurgency itself has no possibility of succeeding without “foreign support.” The conflict is described as a potential weapon that could be used against Pakistan and that it is “ultimately Islamabad that must decide whether Baluchistan will become its Achilles’ heel.” This somewhat cryptic conclusion, in the light of recent reports and developments can be deciphered as a veiled threat now being openly played.

Quite clearly when Islamabad accused foreign governments of fueling and arming the unrest in Baluchistan, they were absolutely correct. Seymour Hersh’s report lays to rest any illusions over whether or not America is arming Baluchi rebels. Brookings’ “Which Path to Persia?” report also openly calls for arming and sending Baluchi rebels out against Tehran. More recently, longtime proponent of a Baluchi insurgency, Selig Harrison of the Soros funded Center for International Policy, has published two pieces regarding the “liberation” of Baluchistan itself.

Harrison’s February 2011 piece, “Free Baluchistan,” calls to “aid the 6 million Baluch insurgents fighting for independence from Pakistan in the face of growing ISI repression.” He continues by explaining the various merits of such meddling by stating, “Pakistan has given China a base at Gwadar in the heart of Baluch territory. So an independent Baluchistan would serve U.S. strategic interests in addition to the immediate goal of countering Islamist forces.”

Harrison would follow up his frank call to carve up Pakistan by addressing the issue of Chinese-Pakistani relations in a March 2011 piece titled, “The Chinese Cozy Up to the Pakistanis.” He begins by stating, “China’s expanding reach is a natural and acceptable accompaniment of its growing power—but only up to a point. ” He then reiterates his call for extraterritorial meddling in Pakistan by saying, “to counter what China is doing in Pakistan, the United States should play hardball by supporting the movement for an independent Baluchistan along the Arabian Sea and working with Baluch insurgents to oust the Chinese from their budding naval base at Gwadar. Beijing wants its inroads into Gilgit and Baltistan to be the first step on its way to an Arabian Sea outlet at Gwadar.”

Selig Harrison is also a regular attendee at the “Balochistan International Conference” and frequently reiterates his calls for a “free Baluchistan.” With him is Washington lobbyist Andrew Eiva, a former special forces operator who took part in supporting the Mujaheddin in Afghanistan. He proposes a vision of a bright future where Baluchis will enjoy their gas and oil wealth one day in their own autonomous, free nation. Such encouragement from Harrison, whose Center for International Policy is funded by the Ford Foundation, George Soros’ Open Society Institute, and Rockefeller Family and Associates, or Eiva’s flights of petroleum-fueled fancy at a Carnegie Endowment function – funded by Exxon, Chevron, BP Corporations of North America, the GE Foundation, Shell International, as well as the globalist mainstays of Soros, Rockefeller, and the Smith Richardson Foundation – would be almost laughable if real people weren’t dying and Pakistan’s entire future being put at risk.

With the inclusion of fake-human rights NGOs like Soros' Open Society-funded Human Rights Watch, attempting to tie the hands of the Pakistani government in dealing with these admittedly foreign-armed and backed militants, we can see the trifecta of NGOs, covert military support, and political propaganda destabilizing yet another nation. We also see a clear, over-arching strategy not aimed at Afghanistan, not even aimed at Pakistan, but ultimately aimed at disrupting and ending Chinese interests on their own border. This "trifecta" could also be seen successfully at work in the Southeast Asian country of Myanmar where covert military operations, coupled with foreign-funded NGOs, and political propaganda supplied by fake "democracy icon" Aung San Suu Kyi, were successfully used to stop the construction of a joint Chinese-Myanmar mega-dam in the northern state of Kachin.

Conclusion

Quite clearly then, Riedel's fears regarding Pakistan are somewhat disingenuous. In reality, he knows that the US is willfully destabilizing the country and setting the pretense for wider US and NATO military aggression throughout the region, including the invasion of Pakistan and the seizure of its nuclear arsenal. He also knows that the grand strategy is aimed not at neutralizing the manufactured threat of terrorism, but at containing China, a policy that was openly declared by current US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton within her article titled, "America's Pacific Century."

That BBC produced a two-hour long "documentary" to shoehorn every aspect of the "War on Terror" into the new narrative of "Secret Pakistan" and elude that the war "has a life of its own," is a horrific piece of propaganda aimed at perpetuating, even expanding an already catastrophic conflict. BBC willfully misleads its audience into believing that Pakistan has "betrayed" its Western allies and is partially responsible for the now, thousands of US, British, and NATO troops that have died in the war. In reality, Pakistan is doing what it must against a nation that invaded its neighbor under false pretenses and has conspired within the halls of its corporate-funded think-tanks to subvert, overthrow, and then invade Pakistan. BBC and the corporate media have by far helped send more US, British and NATO troops to their needless death with their lies than any Pakistani intelligence agency.

The words of Kagan, Reidel, and Harrison, who are documented to have conspired against the sovereignty and security of foreign nations, must be spread far and wide. If soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines want to continue fighting with full knowledge that they do so for a corporate-financier agenda to eliminate Wall Street and London's global competitors, so be it. At least they have the right to know what they are really fighting for and for what they may potentially die for. Pakistan can likewise defend itself from this army of mercenaries without disingenuous liars like the BBC twisting reality around and portraying Pakistanis as "duplicitous."